Once more with feeling
by Margaux Chutney
Summary: An alternative outcome to the episode For one night only... what if Peter had managed to retain his part in the play? Reviews are most welcome!
1. Chapter 1

It was all in his imperfections, she decided.

The way his nose stuck out just a little too far. The almost imperceptible crook in his smile. The roll of skin that gathered and slightly over-hung the back of his collar.

The collar, itself.

Assumpta Fitzgerald had always had fairly orthodox tastes when it came to men. The boys she had dated were all perfectly forgettable – similar hair, average height and symmetry of features or the same smile.

Her friend, Niamh had joked that her friend's taste in men was the only Catholic thing about her.

_If only she knew…_

But Father Peter Clifford… honestly? He was too tall – too _awkward._

_Too kind, too intelligent, too handsome is he for you, Assumpta? _

Too unavailable.

"More Champagne, 'Sumpta?" Peggy's voice was a welcome distraction from her thoughts. It was the after-party for their play – Ryan's Mother – and for once Assumpta could be waited upon.

The glamorous starlet, in noticeable make-up and heels – and Peter, her leading man, across the room in his very best grey jumper.

On cue, her fellow thespian caught her gaze with his own.

He knew. He _knew._ They'd gone and done it, hadn't they? A year of tip-toeing around this quiet affection and they'd now hung it all out to dry – in front of the entire village, no less.

The script had called for a kiss – _they'd had to kiss_ – but they'd overstepped the stage directions somewhat. Forgotten their mark.

_Mary kisses Matt softly on the mouth. _

That was the direction. Just that. Had they fulfilled it?

Peter's lips had inched imperceptibly towards hers. _If it's a sin there'll be no repeating it_, she recited dutifully. And then she froze.

_If it's a sin…_

As soon as his co-star hesitated, Peter quickly closed the gap between them, ignoring the stage direction entirely. He kissed her once, politely. Closed-mouthed and chaste – or as chaste as a kiss between a Priest and a publican could ever be.

But as soon Assumpta felt his lips on hers, there was no going back. She responded immediately, or at least her body did while her mind tried to catch up. She arched forward, leaving no space between them, and opened her mouth ever so slightly, holding his face lightly beneath her fingertips.

There'd been no practice, no dress rehearsal. Father Frank MacAnally, the Parish Priest, had seen to that. But there was no preventing this moment – _this kiss._ They had to make it count.

Peter's mouth widened, almost into a grin as she drew closer, sighing dreamily against his mouth. By now her fingers had made their way into his hair, his neck, as the kiss deepened. And deepened. _And deepened._

At last, he found her tongue as she found his. Peter felt his stomach tighten in accordance when she allowed him access. He searched her mouth with fervency, joining those delicious sighs as she goaded him to go deeper, explore further.

The crowd dissipated. All there was were the two of them, this stage and a sea of angry lights. And this kiss. _This kiss._ This kiss that had evolved them. This kiss that would be their undoing.

This kiss that had already gone on too long.

The next thing that Assumpta had been aware of was the stage dimming. Shrouded by darkness, she heard the imperceptible tat of hands clapping, gingerly and under polite duress. A chorus of reluctant applause.

Peter tore away immediately, his eyes still foggy with desire. "I'm sorry," he announced, immediately breaking character.

"Shhh, it's fine," Assumpta assured him with no idea why. "Time for our curtain call."

"Curtain. Sure." Peter stood shakily, keeping his hips conspicuously pointed towards Stage Left.

Assumpta made the impromptu decision to hold her co-star's hand as she rose, but released it just as suddenly when she discovered just how clammy it was with sweat.

"Sorry," Peter mouthed, again. Was there no end to his humiliation?

The applause had erupted accordingly. There were even a few standing ovations. As unlikely as it seemed, the play was a huge success. Audience members had been congratulating Assumpta all night. There was even talk of sequel –

"Wouldn't that be _Ryan's Daughter_, Padraig?" Michael Ryan had ventured.

"Right you are then," the would-be Producer had replied, unfazed.

Assumpta scoffed at such a prospect. Another play – another illicit romance, no less. _Over my dead body_, she'd declared to anyone who mentioned it.

Her eyes fell to Peter again. Instinctively she held a group of fingers to her lips. They still stung to high-heaven of course. Who knew that Ballykissangel's mild-mannered curate had been hiding a five-o-clock shadow all of this time? Who knew what he'd been hiding…

Peter caught her staring of course, but instead of this time returning her look with a nervous smile, he crossed the room to meet her.

_Oh heavens. _

In want of somewhere to hide, Assumpta tried to make herself as small as possible. As it happened she still felt every set of eyes in the room at her back.

"My leading lady," Peter announced as he reached her.

"My… my _man_," she stuttered by way of a response, inwardly kicking herself for her giddiness.

"I meant to say before, you were really good tonight. Really good."

"Thanks," she blushed shamefully. "You too. A Priest who can act? Better alert the Vatican."

Peter grinned nervously. "Perhaps I missed my calling?"

The publican returned her gaze to her drink. "I think that maybe you did."

The loaded nature of their exchange didn't go unnoticed by the curate. "So," he interjected when the silence became to long. "_Ryan's Daughter._ Are you in?"

"That's seriously going ahead?"

"Brendan and Padraig are already transcribing the movie."

"You're not serious?"

Peter raised his eyebrows in assent. "A village favourite, or so I'm told."

"Not just the village. The whole of Ireland has seen that film. I swear, they'd study it in school if it was permitted."

"So you fancy yourself as Rosy Ryan then?" he asked cagily.

"That depends. Will you be my Doryan?"

"Thought you'd had enough of my stage skills by now."

Assumpta took another drink. "Who'd ever have enough of those?"

Peter shot her a panicked look. The kiss – _their kiss_ – remained at the forefront of his mind. How could it not? He could still taste her lipstick.

"I… I think I'll be strictly behind the scenes for this one" he decided with a nervous smile. "It wouldn't be fair on the other actors, after all."

"Of course" she agreed, attempting to hide her disappointment. "Couldn't have that – "

"Ballyk's very own star-crossed lovers, I presume?"

A drunken Brendan, their _esteemed writer_, bellowed from behind them, brandishing crudely annotated leaves of A4 in one fist and a glass of whisky in the other. "I have your new assignment."

"Can't a girl ever get a night off, Brendan?"

The teacher smirked knowingly at his former pupil. "Sure, it's a hard life in the limelight. Now, Ryan's Daughter Act 1, Scene 1 –"

"Ah, leave the little lovebirds alone won't you?" Now Padraig had joined their awkward gathering. "Can't you see we're interrupting?"

"You're not interrupting," Assumpta interjected.

"Never interrupting." The Priest agreed too quickly to sound at all convincing.

"Any road," Padraig continued regardless. "As your Director – "

Peter frowned. "I thought I was the Director?"

"You were the Actor."

"Can't I be both?"

"Anyway," he continued tipsily. "As your Director, I wanted to tell you just how marvellous you both were. That scene. _That_ scene. Wowsers."

Assumpta caught Peter staring at her sheepishly. "Well, it's over now at least."

"But seriously, as your _Director_, I couldn't have plotted the scene better meself. Couldn't have captured that passion in a million years."

"It was all in the stage direction," the publican offered.

"Now, there you're wrong – see?" Brendan interrupted, brandishing the annotated papers he'd been holding. _Honestly,_ Assumpta inwardly remarked. Had her former teacher really just written the new script on the back of the old?

"_Mary kisses Matt. _See? Don't you see it? And tonight it was Peter who kissed her – Mary, I mean Assumpta."

Realising the discomfort that they both felt, Peter attempted to steer the conversation to safer climes. "Ah, but call yourself a Director, Padraig? You missed the entire last page. The Soliloquy…"

Their inebriated men shared a private laugh. "Didn't give us much of a choice there, Peter."

"Sorry?"

"Your little kiss there. Dragged on a wee while, don't you think?"

"Dragged on?" questioned Brendan. "I've had hot meals that haven't lasted as long as that."

The pair erupted into laughter. "We brought down the lights so you'd both still have jobs to go to in the morning. You'd both have lives!"

Peter went to great effort to laugh nonchalantly. Assumpta looked as if she was about to explode.

"Just a performance, Brendan. No more, no less."

Her old school teacher exchanged a nod to his cohort. "You tell that to Father MacAnally – I think he'll have some words for this one in the morning."

Now it was Peter's turn to detonate. "What? He was there – at the performance?"

"Who do you think told us to drop the lights?"

Peter wanted the floor to swallow him whole. Embarrassment forgotten, he now had a set of brand new pressures to immerse him.

"I'm sorry, I think I have to… I'll see you."

And just like that, in a flash, Peter was gone.

Assumpta could only look on at the door forlornly after it closed after him. She didn't mean to, just habit she supposed.

"Not to worry, 'Sumpta." Padraig offered. "We'll find another leading man for you yet."

* * *

_A/N Well, it's been an absolute age since I've been here but I found this old, as yet unfinished story knocking about my hard drive and I thought that i'd revive it. _

_Let me know what you think... should I finish it?_


	2. Chapter 2

It was her fault entirely.

That's what he was going to go with. That's what he'll say.

As much as Peter hated to lay the blame on Assumpta – as if there were blame to lay – this was the only line that he suspected the Parish Priest would buy.

He was wrong.

"I have eyes Father Clifford. I see things. There were two of you up there – two of you… _fornicating_."

"It was in the script"

"So said the Director to the starlet, Father but _that_ most certainly was not in the script."

Peter felt his patience unfurl. "I _had_ to kiss her."

"Yes but I think that's another matter entirely." Father MacAnally's face darkened. "At any rate, you've embarrassed yourself which means you've embarrassed the Church and that is simply not acceptable."

"What would you have me do, eh?" It was now the younger Priest's turn to be incensed. "I kissed her, sure. But it was a _stage kiss_. No… flourishes."

"What I saw was no stage kiss."

"But then," he continued somewhat tetchily. "Assumpta decided that the scene required more gravitas – you know what these actresses are like – and she, well… I think you saw the rest."

"Quite." The elder curate rubbed his chin carefully, as if thinking up an adequate penance to issue to his errant novice.

"I have no doubt that last night's display of gross indecency was the brain-child of Ms Fitzgerald, Father but you still participated" he began. "With _enthusiasm_, I might add."

Peter opened his mouth to speak but soon closed it. Now wasn't the time to argue.

"Nevertheless, what's done is done. All we can do now is _damage control_."

"Damage control?" Father Clifford felt a lump in his throat rise.

Father MacAnally seemed to revel in what he had to say next. "You're not to step foot inside Fitzgeralds until this blows over."

"Excuse me?"

"The pub," Father Mac reminded him derisively. "I think it would be wise for the town not to see you and Assumpta Fitzgerald together for a while."

Father Clifford furrowed his brow. "Won't that seem a bit… conspicuous?"

"I don't care how it seems," commented the elder Priest. "I _do _care how the parishioners perceive their curate, however. And at the moment they see you more like Rudolph Valentino than a man of God."

At the sight of Peter's crestfallen face, he continued, "This isn't a punishment, Father Clifford – "

"Could have fooled me…"

" – and as much as you might miss those afternoon _assignations_ at Fitzgeralds ." Father Mac raised his eyebrows, goading his younger to disagree "my mind is made up."

Like a judge ruling his final verdict, Father MacAnally stood up following his closing words. Peter soon followed suit, albeit reluctantly, and shook the old man's hand, as if casting the agreement in stone.

"Just think," Father Mac began as he escorted the young curate to the door. "All of this could have been avoided if that man, Enda Sullivan hadn't injured his ankle."

Father Clifford nodded non-committedly. "I suppose."

The Parish Priest paused as they reached the doorstep and added distractedly. "They make a strong couple, don't you think."

"Enda and Assumpta?" he answered dubiously. "I-I suppose."

"Don't suppose he's Catholic though," he uttered regretfully. "Oh well, you can have it all."

With those parting words, the door closed behind him.

Peter breathed a sigh but it wasn't with relief exactly. He wouldn't be allowed to go to Fitzgeralds again. He couldn't see Assumpta again!

Since they agreed to do the play, seeing Assumpta was all that Father Clifford seemed to want to do. The high point of his day – of any man's day, he'd wager.

She had this way about her – a _quality_. She could soothe your woes and raise your blood pressure, all in the same instance. She was infuriating! But Peter had decided long ago that Assumpta was also one of the most genuinely thoughtful and gentle creatures God had made.

She loved her friends – and although she'd never say it, she cared about her neighbours also. She surprised him.

Constantly.

He could never anticipate her mood. Every day, Peter's lived in fear of yet another of the landlady's outbursts. Indeed, every time he so much as looked at her, his heart would threaten to beat right out of his chest.

No. _No_. That wasn't the reason why.

She was beautiful. She improved every room just by being in it. How was that even possible?

Peter couldn't help but let his mind wander back to the night of the play. The kiss that had landed him in so much trouble. He must have thought about that moment more than a hundred times since it happened.

They had to do it – it was in the script. The whole play rested on that scene; they needed to do it justice. When Assumpta hesitated – _oh, why did she hesitate?_ – Peter had no choice but to improvise. To kiss her.

Her mouth was impossibly soft when he touched it – and sweet. Like confection. Peter had made a fist to stop his hands from shaking, clasping so tightly that he still had indentations from his nails hours later.

He'd pulled away after the initial closed-mouth kiss. Just as he should have. Like he was supposed to. But, in truth, Assumpta had drawn him in like some kind of Siren.

He sniffed. _Praying Mantis, more like._

She demanded more of the Priest than he was willing to give. She always wanted more. And Peter had slipped. He had slipped. Given into the desire that he'd spent so long resisting.

Peter stopped walking suddenly and leant his head against the cool brickwork of an abandoned tenement.

He could still taste her perfume. He could still taste _her_. His lips buzzed infuriatingly as if hers were still underneath. Distractedly, he touched the lower one gently with his tongue as he remembered how hers had felt there. Tugging at his mouth. Tasting his saliva. Devouring him from within.

_Oh, God…_

Father Clifford too four deep breaths, as he always did when his thoughts of Assumpta became too much.

One. You're a Priest.

Two. She wouldn't be interested anyway.

Three. You're a Priest.

Four. _You're a Priest._

At Breath two, Peter realised a crucial inaccuracy in his mantra.

_She wouldn't be interested anyway._

Something inside him now knew that to be false. That look. That electricity in the moments that followed. She knew. Assumpta felt it too. There was more between them than they'd allowed for. More than either of them knew.

Peter felt his mouth tingle again like jolts of dull electricity. Distractedly, he wiped lips against the rough brick in an attempt to feel an alternative sensation. He did it again. And again. But still the pins and needles persisted.

_Please, God. Why? _

He tried again, this time drawing blood from his lower lip. The pain eclipsed his former feelings immediately. Now all he could taste was a faint metallic sweetness from his seeping mouth. But his relief was immediately superseded by shame.

_What am I doing? _

Father Clifford wiped the excess blood with the back of his hand and continued on his journey. A quick cursory glance around revealed that thankfully he hadn't had an audience.

_This time around, at least. _

Realising that for once perhaps his superior had been correct with his directions, Peter slipped into one of the pubs in Cilldargen High Street for his lunchtime pint.

It wasn't as welcoming as Fitzgeralds – in fact, it was pretty dire. But the absence of a certain raven-head publican meant that it was perfect. Or at the very least, it would certainly have to do.

* * *

_A/N Thank you for your lovely comments guys. I feel inspired to finish this one! And Happy Trotting Elf, I expect some more lovely chapters from you sometime too please_

_Oh, and Bridget - of course this story could never be a K+... I don't know what I was thinking picking that advisory rating! Expect it to go up shortly.. :) _

_Feedback is, as always, my main motivation for getting these chapters posted. So, if you'd like to leave a comment, I'd love to read it!_


	3. Chapter 3

The stage is empty. Instead of a set, there are straw bales. In the place of an audience, there is only a sea of lights.

Assumpta is dressed in a short denim dress – something she hadn't worn since she was a student. It's meant to be worn with a T-shirt underneath but to her horror, Assumpta has forgotten this particular article of clothing. The straps barely cover her exposed breasts.

Her first thought is to change – but into what? The lights stare on unwaveringly, exposing her every crevice, her every curve to the auditorium.

"There'll be no repeating it."

From nowhere, a deep male voice whispers in her ear. Peter. _Peter…_

She turns suddenly, before realising that her denim dress, in all of its scarcity, has now also disappeared. She is naked.

Peter drinks her in. "You're beautiful," he whispers as if in awe.

Assumpta feels herself falling towards him on a bale. As if of their own accord, her legs straddle either side of the Priest. "But wait," she begs as his hands make their way up her rib cage. "It's a sin…"

Peter looks at her and smiles. "For you it isn't."

Before his mouth is about to touch hers, Assumpta wakes up with a jolt.

A dream. Only a dream, she assures herself. Leaning over the dog, she takes a sip of water from the nightstand and glanced at the clock.

5.12 am.

This had been happening a lot lately, she realised. Too much. It was one thing indulging in the odd involuntary dream about him but it was really quite another when her waking world seemed to pale by comparison.

Peter hadn't called by the pub much lately. In fact, she hadn't seen him at all in nearly a week. At best, it was unusual not to see the curate for his afternoon pint at least once every few days. At worst? She didn't entertain it.

Fionn had taken his mistress' awakening as a sign that it was time to get up.

"Had enough of sleep, have we boy?" she sighed, swinging her legs out of bed. "Fair enough, then."

It was her third 5am start so far this week.

Following a lightening-quick shower, the publican threw on the first thing her hands reached from the wardrobe – a short, red floral dress that she hadn't worn since college.

Once changed, Assumpta looked through the window only to see yet another dreary day.

"Perfect" she commented acerbically. But rather than change, she just threw on a thick woolen cardigan and a pair of DMs, also incidentally from her student days.

"Your Ma is dressed like a teenager today, eh Fionn?" The dog let out a helpless whine. "Yeah, well. It'll do for your walk at least."

The publican was already a good distance from the house when the heaven's opened.

Rain. _Marvellous._

Ill-equipped for the weather and ruing the moment that she selected her decidedly non-waterproof outfit, Assumpta took refuge under the nearest cover in her path. The curate's porch.

She didn't realise right away where she'd been standing, of course. It wasn't until the porch light illuminated and footsteps sounded through the door that she recognised the cherry red door next to her.

_Oh dear… _

Before she managed to make a hasty retreat, the door opened and out came a disheveled and very weary looking Father Clifford.

"Assumpta?"

"Father… I'm sorry, I…"

"Can I… help?"

Assumpta felt her cheeks burn. "Sorry, you caught me. Just taking refuge… from the rain."

Peter let his gaze linger over the barely-covered form of the landlady. Had she just returned from a rave?

"Do you want to come in?" he heard himself ask unexpectedly.

"Cup of tea?" she mumbled hopefully.

Father Clifford allowed her pass, leaving a wide-berth between them.

Assumpta stepped into the Priest's front room with Fionn and tipped her head forward, using her discarded cardigan to absorb most of the moisture from her hair.

Peter stood perfect still.

Unbeknownst to the publican, the dampness of her dress had caused the material to cling suggestively to the tops of her thighs.

This coupled with the calf-high leather of her boots roused something in the Priest that he'd been trying to forget for the best part of a week – for a year even; his unwavering attraction to Assumpta.

"I'll put the kettle on, then" he offered weakly without making his move. She'd moved to dry Fionn with the front of her dress. Peter noticed with alarm that she was practically tipping out of her neckline.

_God help me. _

"No sugar for me, thanks."

"Right. Fine…"

Father Clifford tore himself away from the increasingly uncomfortable display in his living room and lingered far too long making tea in the kitchen.

Inexplicably, he'd prepared toast as well. But the offering was well received by his guest.

"You read my mind!"

_Just as long as you don't read mine_… "Happy to help."

Assumpta munched happily. "I can't tell you the last time a man made me breakfast."

"Really?"

Realising the connotations of what she just said, Assumpta immediately turned red. "Oh no, that sounds terrible doesn't it?"

"Quite the opposite, actually" he placated, trying to keep the relief from his voice.

Assumpta smiled sheepishly into her tea. "Perhaps I should take Enda up on his offer of a date."

Peter's face darkened. "Enda Sullivan?"

"The very same" she announced. "Niamh's all for it, of course. Tells me that eligible men in Ballykissangel are hardly like fish in a barrel and I should take what I'm offered."

"I'd say you're not short of offers."

"Hardly." The publican looked longingly into the tealeaves in her cup, as if trying to understand her own future. "If I agree to Enda, it'll be my first date in two years!"

"Two years?" Peter repeated in faux-outrage. "You're practically a Priest!"

"Very nearly" she agreed. "In fact, that scene…" Assumpta stopped short of revealing any more, realising quickly that she'd perhaps be sharing too much.

But Peter wasn't about to let it go. "That scene?"

His companion flushed and, averting her gaze, smiled brightly. "That scene with you and I… well, that was the first _anything_ that I've had in more than two years."

Now it was Peter's turn to flush. "Me too…" he joked shyly.

Instead of joining in with his mirth, Assumpta held the curate in her stare as if she had something altogether different on her mind.

"What?" Peter caught her gaze. "What…" he repeated, his nervous laughter echoing around the room.

"At least it was worth it."

It was only now that Peter realised juts how uneasy the publican was in his presence. Her skin glistened with perspiration. Her breathing was shallow. And now, coupled with what she'd just admitted… could Assumpta be feeling the same thing too?

Taking his hesitation at face value, she commented. "Perhaps not for you, eh? So what was it – five hundred lines or a week's detention?"

"Eh?" he muttered, till reeling from his musings.

"Your punishment? I seem to remember that you were due a dressing down from Father Mac."

"Oh yeah," the curate dismissed. "It wasn't so bad."

"No?"

Peter hesitated before continuing. "He barred me… from Fitzgerald's."

"He what?" she responded in a hushed tone. "From my pub? Here's me thinking that I was the only one who could do that."

Peter smirked. "And Parish Priests."

"So it would seem. How long do you have to stay away?"

_Forever._ "Just until things blow over. Until there's a new town gossip to occupy everyone instead."

Assumpta clicked her tongue against her mouth. "Well," she announced after a moment. "If I stay here any longer, the town may just have it. C'mon Fionn."

Without another word, she arose from her chair. "Thanks for the tea. And the toast."

Peter nodded in accordance, trying to hide his disappointment at her departure. "Any time."

"Careful or I might hold you to that." The publican joked without looking at him.

She was about to reach for the door handle when Peter found his voice again.

"It was, you know."

Assumpta glanced up to find the curate staring intently at the doorjamb, at the wall – anywhere but at her.

"The kiss," he clarified and then, wearing that crooked smile that Assumpta had learned to love, Peter leaned close and looked her straight in the eye. "Totally worth it."

For a moment, Assumpta thought he was going to kiss her again. His mouth – now mere centimetres from hers – parted slightly; his eyes seemed to soften.

When he didn't, the publican lost her footing and stumbled backwards through the front door, tangling herself in Fionn's lead as she did so. To make matters worse, she saluted – _saluted!_ – the curate before heading down the road in the wrong direction.

Peter watched her leave for longer than necessary, his insides twisting at the revelation that was now unfolding.

Something had changed. She was different. Less sure of herself. G_irlish, _even.

Could it be that someone had found his way into the heart of Assumpta Fitzgerald?

Another more pressing thought immediately followed.

_Could it be that that someone was he? _


	4. Chapter 4

The possibility that Assumpta returned his affections was too much for Peter to process.

His thoughts of her seemed to metastasise. He began to perceive his fantasies of her as real possibilities. If he were to catch her at the pub after hours, would they end up making love against the optics? If he kissed her – just _kissed_ her, right now – would she return it in kind?

His stomach ached in an anticipation that could never be realised.

He was a Priest. _A Priest!_ He couldn't keep entertaining these thoughts. His unconscious hours were one thing but his waking, quite another. Peter needed to get this under control – now. He needed to rid himself of all things Assumpta.

"What are you talking about, Ryan's Daughter needs you. You're the leading man!"

Padraig was tinkering under the bonnet of Peter's automobile when he delivered his response to the curate's resignation from the play.

"I'm too snowed under – you understand, surely?"

"Oh sure, it'd not like I don't have a business, a teenager and a production to manage. Can't imagine what stress is like!"

"Padraig – "

The mechanic sighed. "Can't you do something else? Not the lead, sure but maybe something behind the scenes? Can you direct again?"

"I thought you were the Director?"

"Nah, Brendan and I can't decide which of us should do it." Padraig admitted. "Not worth the arguments to be frank.

Peter looked at his car, lost in thought. Behind the scenes wouldn't be so bad. At least this time he wouldn't have to kiss Assumpta?

_Someone else would_.

Peter shifted uncomfortably on the balls of his feet. _Maybe even Enda…_

As much as he was trying to be good, he certainly didn't want anyone else to have her – least of all _him_.

"I'll do it," he announced. "On one condition..."

"What do you mean we can't have Enda Sullivan as the Major? He's the reason I'm backing this. Again."

Brian Quigley was fuming into his stout at his usual spot in Fitzgerald's. Never one to relish being undermined, the fact that it had happened twice now, in two different plays, was almost too much for the businessman to bear.

"What can I say?" Padraig held his hands in the air. "Father Clifford made it his expressed condition. Said that a rock star wasn't a good role model for the parish."

"Role model?" Quigley spluttered. "He's playing a philanderer who eventually kills himself. I don't think they'll be making action figures of him."

Assumpta listened carefully to the conversation at her bar as she feigned cleaning shelves. _So Peter Clifford has taken Enda off the play?_ She wondered casually if he'd made this decision before of after she'd told him about her date with the musician.

"Who does he want instead then? Himself again, I suppose…" Brian gave the woman behind the bar a pointed look as he said this.

"Actually no. Father Clifford wants to stay behind the scenes this time around."

"Naturally," he replied gruffly, still keeping his focus on Assumpta. "Fine. Sullivan's out. What's next?"

While the men continued on with their discussions, Assumpta allowed her mind to wander back to where it had always invariably liked to go. To Peter – and to their kiss. To the question of what it meant for their relationship going forward?

Assumpta wasn't stupid – she knew that the likelihood that it meant anything to Father Clifford was naïve at best. But his jealousy over Enda… now that was something. Wasn't it?

What's more, they were flirting. Flirting! His parting words at the cottage ignited a whole new kind of discourse for the pair. _Totally worth it._ The nerve of the man! But still her every joint went weak when she remembered those words and his mouth as he spoke them. Inches from hers and just poised to do… _something._

She had to know – no, she _demanded_ to know what was going through that brain of his. Did Peter think of Assumpta as often as she thought of him these days? Or was this entire confusion just in her head?

As her mind did its best to provide answers to these questions, she was vaguely aware of being asked something by Padraig.

"So, how does that sound eh, Assumpta? Okay for us to go ahead and book him?"

"Fine" she responded quickly, still preoccupied by her original train of thought.

"That's grand, then" the mechanic lifted his eyebrows in welcome surprise. "I'll ask Liam today."

The publican's brown wrinkled. "Wait, ask Liam wha – " she began only to be interrupted by a ringing phone in the distance. "Hold that thought," she warned him, making her way to the booking desk.

"Fitzgerald's"

The voice on the other end of the line was immediately recognisable. "I'm still waiting for an answer, you know."

Assumpta felt her cheekbones flush. _Enda_. "Answer to what?"

"You know all too well, _Ms_ Fitzgerald" he replied. "Are we going out or what?"

"Well, don't you know _all_ the best ways to woo the ladies?"

"You'd be surprised."

"Actually," the publican sighed, "I don't think I would be."

She heard him smile into the receiver. "So, dinner? Tomorrow, at that little Italian place over in Cilldargen."

Assumpta held the receiver between under her neck and laced her index finger through the spiral cord as she considered his proposition. A few days ago her answer would have been simple. In fact, a few days ago, when Enda first posed this question, her answer had been a reluctant yes of sorts – in her head at least.

Now? So much had changed.

_And yet nothing at all. _

"One condition," she heard herself say. "I'll drive."

Enda's smile was audible. "Fair enough. More wine for me."

"I'll see you tomorrow, then. 7 o'clock."

"It's a date," he agreed before the line went dead.

The publican replaced the receiver to its nook and tried to remember to breathe. This is how adulterers must feel, she imagined. But she wasn't married! Least of all to _Father Peter Clifford._

As if on cue, the telephone rang again. Without even answering it, she knew who it was. Fate had ordained it. She took a laboured breath and picked up the receiver.

"I was thinking" Peter began, a slight tremor in his northern lilt. "Since I'm barred from coming to Fitzgerald's, the least you can do is offer a carry out service."

"Carry out?" she replied, warily. "You know that all I offer is sandwiches and stout?"

The line went silent, as if the Priest had just rethought his rebuttal. "Sandwich and a stout, then" he said instead. "Can you bring it to me?"

Assumpta stuttered over her next words. "To the Church?"

"I'm at home, actually."

Once more, there was an uneasy silence on the line. The publican's mind raced. Was he really asking her to come over?

"There'll be a cover charge," she found herself replying, only half seriously. "And you'll have to wait. Niamh doesn't get here until seven."

Peter released what seemed like a sigh of relief. "I can wait," he told her. "I'll wait."

"Fine."

"Okay, then."

They shared yet another unquiet quiet before the publican hastily hung up the phone.

What had she just agreed to?

The ridiculousness of what had just passed in the last seven minutes was not lost on her. From having no dates in two years, she now had two. Within twenty-four hours of each other.

_With a Rock star and a Priest. _

Assumpta laughed half-hysterically to herself. If cupid existed, it was good to see that he had a sense of humour at least.

"Something funny, Assumpta?" Brian eyed her suspiciously as if she was about to infringe on one of his pending patents.

"Nothing," she assured breezily, weaving her way back to the bar. "Nothing at all. What can I get you?"

As Quigley recited his order, Assumpta felt her mind wander back to her predicament – as if any predicament existed at all. Peter had never invited her over up until this point. He'd never even called her on the phone.

She sincerely doubted that the Priest wanted just sandwich and a stout. But he was a Priest for goodness sake – what else could he possibly want?

A flood of images tumbled through her brain.

_Breathe_, Assumpta. _Just breathe._ So she did. And for now at least, it was all she could think to do.

* * *

_A/N Thanks for the such lovely feedback, peeps. Prepare for things to heat up in the next few chapters..._


	5. Chapter 5

Peter steadied himself against the brushed-oak sideboard. What had he just done?

He'd asked her to come over. He'd effectively placed a _booty call_. Did Assumpta know it was a booty call? Did she even know what a booty call was?

_Did he? _

The curate held his jaw between his thumb and forefinger and sighed, loudly. It had been an eventful afternoon that much was certain. His mind still reeled from his final Confession of the day. Aileen O'Hara, Enda Sullivan's nanny had been reluctant to speak at first. She'd stayed silent for a full half a minute before Peter had managed to coax it out of her – to hear her Confession.

She'd broken the seventh Commandment. She'd committed adultery with another woman's husband.

Father Clifford's ear's pricked.

_Did she know that this man was married? _

_No,_ Aileen had maintained. _No. But it doesn't forgive her sin_. She knew that this man _had _been married. She knew that he had a child. Aileen had just assumed that maybe… she'd thought that perhaps – but no, she knew. She'd known deep down what was true.

Enda Sullivan wasn't the type to go through the hassle of a divorce when he didn't have to. Not when he was already getting the milk for free….

At this point, Aileen thought herself past forgiveness. A stout Catholic, even the sin of sex before marriage seemed to weigh heavily on her.

The Priest tried to absolve her as best he could. _The heart wants what it wants._ There's no provision for that. But Aileen knew as well as he did the extent of the gossip that surrounded her relationship with the musician. This fresh development would all but ruin what was left of her reputation.

She was beyond reprieve.

His thoughts immediately turned to Assumpta. If she agreed to even just one date with Enda, surely her reputation would suffer also. She'd be tarred by the same brush.

What's more, it'd be even more damaging for the publican. She had a business to run which relied as much on people's good opinion of her as it did on their thirst for drink.

He needed to tell her and he needed to do it today. Phone call absolved, then.

Peter glanced at the clock. 6.45pm. She'd be here in 15 minutes. _15 minutes._ And then what? He paced nervously, catching his reflection in the hallway mirror. He'd neglected to change into his civvies when he came in and still wore his black shirt and dog-collar.

Peter considered changing now but would that convey the wrong idea? He was providing Assumpta counsel as her Priest – as her _friend_. It was only right that he wore the uniform.

He then realised something else.

Father Clifford was revealing someone else's confession. He was breaking a holy vow. It had to be done; there was no doubt in his mind of that. But could he in all good conscience do that looking like a Priest?

_You are a Priest, Peter. _

A voice not unlike the publican's resounded in Peter's head. Dog-collar or none, he was still and forever would be an ordained curate. He had to make peace with that. Stand by his decisions as a Priest. _Always a Priest._

A knock on the door snapped Peter from his reckonings.

He glanced at the clock. _She was early._

Haphazardly, he removed the white card from his collar as he reached for the door. _Compromise_, he wagered.

"One cheese and ham on sour dough and a bottle of stout for the curate?"

Assumpta stood just short of the doorstep as if undecided whether to come in. Peter took the paper bag in her proffered hand eagerly and beckoned her to follow him inside.

_Try to remember to breathe…. _

Without speaking, the publican followed him in to the kitchen and leaned against the kitchen counter. She watched with feigned disinterest as Peter searched for something – a plate, perhaps – and absentmindedly pulled herself on the counter.

"Got another one of those," she asked presently, gesturing to the glass of stout he'd half-filled for himself.

"Have this one," Peter volunteered only half-embarrassed to have forgotten his manners. As he passed her the glass, their fingers brushed momentarily sending an involuntary shiver through him.

Pretending not to notice the tremor, the publican took a sip from the tumbler. "Thanks" she whispered carefully.

"What do I owe?"

Assumpta caught his eye. "Excuse me?"

"The beer – and the grub?" he patted his pockets theatrically as if searching for his wallet.

"Don't worry," she told him with a sigh. "I'll put it on your tab."

He nodded gratefully and looked a little embarrassed. It seemed that the Priest's vow of poverty was the only one Peter didn't have any trouble keeping these days.

His mind immediately turned to the other vows he'd been breaking the lately and notably, the vow he'd planned on breaking today.

"You know, I had an ulterior motive for getting you here today" he began in earnest.

"Is that right?"

Father Clifford avoided her close scrutiny. _God, she was beautiful._ "I – er, I found out something today. Something that I think you should know. Something that might affect you."

"_Might_ affect me?"

"What I'm about to tell you was told to me in confidence… in Confession – "

Assumpta flinched. "And you're about to tell me? Do you really think you should…?"

"I have to," he maintained sombrely. "You need to know the truth."

Assumpta studied the curate. As ulterior motives go, this was not what she'd had in mind.

"Go on, then?" she conceded, her voice barely audible.

"Enda is still married."

The publican waited for more but when none came, wrinkled her brow and clarified: "Enda Sullivan?"

Father Clifford nodded slowly and continued, "Aileen O'Hara, Fergal Sullivan's nanny – have you met her?"

Assumpta cast her mind back, vaguely remember Padraig's Kevin bringing his friend Fergal – Enda's son – into the pub one day. Was his child-minder there too? If she was, she was easily forgettable.

"Anyway," Peter continued when the silence continued too long. "Aileen and Enda, well – they'd been having a relationship of sorts when she found out that he'd never got a divorce. He's still married to Fergal's mother."

The publican kept her voice level. "Are they still having a relationship – Aileen and Enda?"

As responses to fairly big revelations go, the Priest wasn't expecting this. "No, not anymore, I don't think."

"And Fergal's mother?" she continued. "Is she still in the picture?"

Peter shifted uncomfortably. He didn't like where this was going. "Not as far as I'm aware."

"So this information – this _news_. How might it affect me, exactly?"

Although her voice was calm, Peter could tell that the publican was anything but. "You mentioned that you might be going on a date with Enda… I thought that you deserved to know – "

"Deserved to know that he's separated? Deserved to know his sexual past – Peter, why on earth would you break that poor girl's Confession over something so trivial? Did you think it'd put me off?"

"I'd hope that it might…"

At this the curate's visitor propelled herself off the work surface. "It's none of my business and it's surely none of yours."

"Assumpta, wait – "

Peter followed after her to the hall where she held one hand against the doorjamb.

"Just what is it to you who I decide to become involved with? Why are _you_ so interested?" she enquired eagerly, only half-expecting an answer.

She certainly did not expect the one that came.

"I _care_ about you, Assumpta."

It was the second time that she'd heard Peter make this pronouncement but it still made every hair follicle stand on end.

She'd avoided his eye line the first time he'd told her. She'd escaped the ensuing awkwardness with a flippant, '_I know'_ but not now. Not today. It took every ounce of fortitude to steer her, but eventually Assumpta replied, still not quite managing to meet his eye.

"Is that all it is?"

Peter immediately took a step back. "What?" he responded. "What do you –?" He searched her eyes for some respite. He looked for a way out. But his endeavour was fruitless. By now, the publican was well and truly fired up.

"You care about me? You _care_… what does that even mean?"

"It means what it's meant to mean?" he stuttered nervously. "It means that we're friends… it means we're supposed to – "

"That all we are, Peter?" she asked under her breath.

The curate narrowed his eyes with incredulity. She was really doing this? Now?

"If we're such _good friends_, why does it _feel_ this way when I'm with you?" Assumpta brushed an invisible tear from her cheek. "Why do _I_ feel this way…?"

She stopped abruptly and finally met his searching gaze. "Why am I always thinking of you?"

Peter gripped the wall for support. His mind raced. Realising that she was eyeing him expectantly, he took a laboured breath and began, "I – I didn't think..." He paused momentarily, still digesting what had been said. "You _think_ about me?"

"More than I should" she told him in a quiet voice. "More than anyone should, about a Priest, I mean…"

He tried to keep his tone professional. He attempted to save face. "Assumpta, I _am_ a Priest."

Her face darkened. "You think I don't know that? You think that I'm not aware?"

"I don't know what to think." Running his hands over his face, he asked again. "You think about me?"

Assumpta began to tire of this inquisition. She couldn't be the only one who was in this. "Don't you, about me?"

At this, Father Clifford backed away into the kitchen. Facing the stove, he held the Aga for support. _Every day,_ he wanted to tell her. _I think about you every day._ But the words stuck in his throat like a bitter pill.

"I swear, I'm losing my mind," he told her instead, burying his face into both hands. "Who knows, maybe I'm not getting enough sleep."

"I wish I were," she muttered.

Peter considered his next words carefully. After a couple of false starts he began, his voice thick with emotion. "I _do_ think about you Assumpta. Much more than I should. More than anyone should, least of all a Priest, but Assumpta – "

"I know." The publican took this as her cue to approach him. "You don't need to tell me. I _know_…"

"This can't happen" he said anyway.

Their eyes met and with the stare came a shared understanding. _Easier said than done. _

Peter attempted an apologetic smile but it couldn't quite reach his eyes. The publican responded in kind with no more success.

Their shared look began to linger. Peter's gaze fell briefly onto her mouth, her clavicle, making him realise how much he wanted to kiss it. To _kiss her. _

He wondered what that would feel like, to kiss her again. Would it be urgent like the first time? Would she still taste like Parma Violets?

His stomach tugged in anticipation. _Do it_, a voice told him. _Do it now._ He leaned in half an inch. He parted his lips slightly…

"It was that damned play…" Assumpta's pronouncement brought him back to the here and now.

"Sorry, what?"

"It brought everything to the surface," she explained slowly. "For me, at least."

Peter conceded with a nod. "Me too, I suppose."

Assumpta paced the kitchen slowly as if trying to align her thoughts. "Or perhaps that's not it at all," she offered eventually, half to herself.

"What?"

"Maybe," she continued. "Maybe these feelings aren't genuine at all. Maybe we're still coming down from the performance. Maybe we're just getting carried away with the illicitness of it all. The _romance_."

Peter tried to hide his disappointment. He knew his own feelings well enough but did she feel the same? Was this even a possibility for her?

"Is this even real?" she asked him without expecting an answer.

Her mouth was still agonisingly close. "How can we know?"

Assumpta looked at him defiantly. "Kiss me," she commanded.

"What?"

"Kiss me," she asked again, arching her body towards his.

Conveniently forgetting that he was mere seconds away from doing that earlier, the curate immediately refuted her suggestion. "No!"

"Please, Peter…"

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. She was willing to rest this whole situation – the entire scope of her feelings on one physical act. One kiss. "Assumpta – "

The publican held a trembling hand to the side of his face. Her voice dropped an octave. "I need to know".

"What?"

"I need to know that it was just a good kiss. Nothing more." Her forehead carefully brushed against the top of his. "Don't you?"

Peter tried to form a reasoned thought – an honest rebuttal of sorts – but all he could feel was the softness of her skin against his own. The sweet warmth of her breath…

He leaned in almost indiscernibly.

"Please…" she begged heavily.

The world began to fade. With a ragged breath, the Priest closed the ever-decreasing space between them and held his mouth against hers for all but a second before pulling away again.

It was a carbon copy of the kiss he'd attempted to give her in the play – chaste and polite; full to the brim with a yearning he was still afraid to show.

And just as with the stage kiss, it wasn't enough for Assumpta. She caught his mouth with hers immediately as he pulled away, goading him to continue, bringing him back for more.

After a split-second hesitation, Peter complied unreservedly, just as he'd done on that faithful opening night. But today there was no audience of astonished parishioners; there was no script. All they had was each other and this kitchen. All they had was this kiss.

And the inescapable truths that came with it.


	6. Chapter 6

Slowly and stubbornly the world began to emerge. First there was light, eclipsing their shadow, illuminating all of their sin. Next came sound: the hum of the refrigerator, a siren in the distance.

Then came their reality.

"It wasn't a good kiss then."

Assumpta's solemn decree, made into the crest of his neck gave Peter cause to fidget awkwardly. "Sorry?"

"No – I meant," she continued shyly, smiling into his shoulder, "it wasn't _just_ a good kiss."

"Oh."

She pulled away and held his gaze as if expecting an answer. "So, we have a problem?"

"I guess we do."

Still trembling from their embrace, Peter gradually began to come to. He accounted for their position, half on the kitchen table with both feet thankfully on the floor. Soon after, he noticed with alarm that some clothes had come undone – a few buttons on his shirt and the strap of Assumpta's dress.

The publican seemed to realise their state of undress just as he did and bashfully pulled her cardigan back over her shoulders.

"Guess we should be thankful Padraig put the lights off when he did." Assumpta joked nervously.

Peter smiled and shifted awkwardly, attempting to disguise the third and most revealing totem of their misconduct.

If his visitor noticed, she was polite about it.

"I should go," she announced suddenly when the awkward silence had continued too long.

The curate nodded.

"I'll see myself out," she offered before he had a chance to get up. "You… stay."

With all the gratitude in the world, Peter told her "Thank you."

Assumpta struggled with the buttons on her cardigan, realising soon after that she'd lost a few in the struggle. Hiding her blushes, she wrapped it around her best she could and set about straightening her hair in the hallway mirror.

_No one better see her like this… _

As she approached the door, Peter had finally regained enough composure to open it for her. His frame loomed over hers and seemed to make every inch of her body dance with gooseflesh.

"What now?" he asked her croakily.

"Now?" she managed. "Now we go back to normal, don't we?"

Peter nodded rationally but he wasn't satisfied. "But what about us? What about... _this_?"

Assumpta considered his question, considered the implications of what they were doing and couldn't help but feel a tingle of excitement course through her. "I haven't the foggiest," she admitted with a smile.

The curate laughed out loud once and after just a moment's hesitation, held her cheek with the warm palm of his hand. "Oh boy, am I in trouble."

"You and me both."

He opened the door a crack before thinking better of it. _If it was a sin, there'd be no repeating it_, or so the line in their play had prophesised. In all likelihood, this would be his only chance to do this again.

Without even considering it further, Peter seized the moment and kissed her again, fiercer this time, against the dark panelled wood of the door.

Assumpta returned it more than willingly, as if this kiss too had been on the forefront of her mind. Gripping handfuls of the curate's hair as she allowed herself to be lifted and pinned against the solid mahogany, she immediately felt everything that he'd been hiding – both literally and figuratively.

His now very evident arousal seemed to send shudders through her body as it rubbed against the thin layers of material that separated them. The most burning thought that plagued them both was just how easy it'd be – just _how easy_. A small shift here, a movement there and he'd be inside of her, exploring from within.

The intoxicating allure of this prospect gave the Priest cause to hook his thumb on the waistband of her skirt. It even made him tug a little. _But no._ There was such a thing as _too easy_ and this – whatever _this_ was – would not cheapen so readily.

Reluctantly, they parted once more, as frustrated as they felt elated. "I'll see you," Assumpta promised weakly as she backed quickly out of the door, no longer caring about her even-more dishevelled appearance.

Peter, for his part, remained slumped against the front door for some time afterwards. To say this was unchartered territory for the curate would be the understatement of an understatement. He had no idea what he was doing.

But it sure felt good.

He smiled involuntarily into the crook of his elbow and stood, reluctantly, and set about clearing up the overturned chairs and broken glassware in the kitchen. Fixing what he could of tangible mess they'd made.

* * *

Assumpta Fitzgerald was not known for having her head in the clouds. As a teenager, her school report seldom included the phrase and when it did, it was always written in her Theology professor's illegible scrawl.

But today was different. Today her head had well and truly taken leave of her shoulders – and leave of her senses.

_I swear, I'm losing my mind_

The only thing Peter Clifford had freely admitted to without coercion. _His declaration_. Hardly the stuff of romance novels, but even just the memory of those words sent shivers down her spine.

There was what happened after too of course.

An involuntary flush spread across the publican's face, which she tried to hide by burying her head in the wine fridge.

To no avail… "Something the matter there, Assumpta?" Siobhan flashed her a knowing smile. "Wouldn't be thinking about a certain former co-star would we?"

Assumpta's blush broadened. "Who... what?"

The vet nodded towards the ostentatious arrangement of flowers that adorned the back bar. "Those from him, are they?"

"Enda?" An audible sign of relief escaped her throat. "Oh yeah. Arrived this morning in fact."

Siobhan grinned shrewdly. "All in time for the _Big Date_ tonight then. Something tells me he's done this before?"

"Aren't I the lucky one then?" she deadpanned to the Vet's amusement.

The date. Yes, the date. A knot in the pit of Assumpta's stomach began to tighten. It was too late to cancel of course – too conspicuous – but the idea of spending an evening in the company of one man when all she could think about was another seemed like pure hell.

She'd already quietly decided to wear her most conservative outfit – no need to lead Enda on anymore than she already had. There was even a chance that she could turn the whole evening into a type of business dinner. Talk over the possibility of Enda becoming Fitzgerald's resident musician? It was worth a shot at any rate.

So, that was one romantic crisis dealt with. Just how she was going to solve the other was quite another thing…

The flush began to creep back onto her cheeks.

_Lord help me. _

* * *

On the other side of the village. Father Clifford was suffering no less than his cohort. His guilt over their kiss was palpable but no more than his longing to do the same thing all over again.

Peter shook his head in protest and attempted to focus on the task at hand, balancing the Church's books. But still, his mind wandered.

He'd never had a kiss like that before. It wasn't really saying much, his sexual history was sparse at best, but his encounter with Assumpta had easily surpassed anything he'd done prior to taking his vows.

With every movement, every graze of her mouth, she'd goaded him – she'd _ensnared_ him. Peter held the back of his index finger to his mouth, subconsciously trying to recapture the exact pressure – the exact feel – of her lips, but to no avail.

He sighed audibly. It was a one-time thing, he'd promised himself and his God. It wouldn't happen again – it couldn't. But then, how come chaining himself to his desk was all he could do to keep him from going over to the pub and doing it all over again?

Peter tried to concentrate on the numbers in the balance book.

"£125.36 minus £37.45 plus £22.05… "

_Focus, Peter. Focus. _

"…carry the nine."

No. It wasn't any good. He had to see her. He had to go over there. As much as he'd tried, Peter was about to break yet another holy order and _de-bar_ himself from the pub.

His hand lingered on the door handle for all of fifteen seconds while he gave himself the chance to reconsider. By the time his heart had caught up with his head however, he was gone.

* * *

By the time Peter reached Fitzgerald's, it was already a full house. Every seat in the place was taken leaving the Englishman to hang back by the reservations desk and question his decision to come in.

"Father, over here!"

Immediately spotted by Brendan, Peter weaved a path through the crowds and found a vacated stool between the schoolteacher and Siobhan.

"I've never seen this place so full" he commented, gesturing for a pint from Niamh.

"We're all here for the show," Siobhan commented cryptically to the group's amusement.

"The show?"

Just as Father Clifford asked this, Niamh delivered his pint of lager and informed him in a happy sing-song voice, "Assumpta's got a date tonight."

The knot in Peter's stomach began to tighten exponentially.

"Those," the barmaid gestured conspiratorially to the huge bunch of azaleas behind the bar "are from _him_."

"Enda?" he managed to sputter eventually.

"Word travels fast I see" the barmaid commented. "Speaking of the man – Enda! I'll just fetch her ladyship for you."

Peter hunched his shoulders and kept his attention on the azaleas, unprepared as of yet to face the man he'd so recently detested.

Unfortunately, it wasn't his decision to make.

"Father Clifford, how are you?"

The Priest turned begrudgingly and flashed Enda a counterfeit smile. It was all he could do to keep from punching the would-be adulterer right in the face.

Before he was forced to do any more, Assumpta appeared from behind the bar, dressed demurely in an ankle-length dress and cream linen blazer.

She could have been wearing knee-highs and suspender belt for all Peter saw of her. Eyes buried in his pint, he tried to regulate his breathing. After everything – _everything_ – he'd said to her, everything they'd done, she'd agreed to this date with Enda?

He was so angry, he couldn't see straight.

Assumpta shared a few perfunctory words with Niamh before she nodded to the musician that she was ready.

If she'd noticed Peter – or if she were in the least at all bothered by his presence – the publican didn't show it. It was only when she walked past him that she acknowledged him with a muted, "Good evening Father."

Concerned by appearances, Peter replied with more of the same as he finally raised his eyes up from his glass and watched her leave, his gaze remaining on the closing door for far longer than was necessary.

As he tore his regard back to the bar, Father Clifford was alarmed to discover that all eyes had now fallen to him. Were his parishioners really that perceptive?

He took a large mouthful of beer and was relieved when the conversation resumed and the eyes gradually fell away.

All pairs of eyes bar one…

Father MacAnally seemed to materialise out of thin air. "Father Clifford" he growled by way of a greeting or a warning. Peter couldn't determine which.

The younger curate cursed silently into his drink as his superior edged closer, posed to speak again.

"You can see me tomorrow," he advised cryptically before leaving the bar area and resuming his place in the corner booth with Brian.

Peter nodded curtly before finishing what was left of his pint and signalling for another. Something in the way Father Mac had greeted him had unnerved the young Priest.

It was almost as if Peter's presence in the embargoed pub wasn't the only thing that bothered Frank MacAnally. Could he know what had transpired a mere 24 hours ago? Was it even possible?

As he mulled this over, Peter realised that he was already most of the way into his second pint so he asked for another.

Niamh brought it over with an air of surprised disapproval that only she could manage.

_Great_, the Priest thought. _Another thing to atone for._

With the manner of a scorned man, Peter started on his third pint, quickly realising that no dinner and a head full with emotions meant that tonight he was going to get very drunk. Very drunk indeed.

* * *

_A/N Thank again for all of the lovely feedback this story has been receiving. We've a few chapters ahead of us yet so I hope you'll all stick with me... there'll be plenty more P&A action if you do ;-)_


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning arrived as quickly as it left. Assumpta had finished all of the days' jobs by half ten – anything to keep her from analysing _that_ look that Peter gave her as she left the pub the night before.

As if her guilt wasn't enough.

Niamh had told her when she came in that Father Clifford had taken one too many that evening and had to be escorted home by Doc Ryan. His abstinence, she'd put it down to. He hadn't been to the pub in over a fortnight – this is what self-denial leads to, the barmaid had warned.

She didn't know the half of it

Niamh had wanted to know about the date of course – _would there be another?_ She was disappointed when Assumpta had brushed off her line of questioning, feigning tiredness instead.

The publican glanced at her watch. She had all of three and a half hours before the interrogation began again along with Niamh's shift. She'd better make this good.

The truth was that the date was fine. _It was fine._ The conversation flowed along with the wine. Enda was courteous – complimentary, even. He'd offered to pay but wasn't insulted when she insisted that they split the cheque.

If he'd noticed an atmosphere with the Priest, he didn't mention it – bar a throw-away observation that for an atheist she was very friendly with Father Clifford; a remark she had rebuked with her own observations about the musician's relationship with his babysitter.

Assumpta had refrained from asking about his wife. Unlike Peter Clifford, she wasn't about to betray a confidence that wasn't even hers to keep. It was true – the publican wasn't wild about being on a date with a man who was already married, but she wasn't wild about fooling around with a Priest either and she'd done that. Willingly. _Oh so willingly._

Her lips tingled at the memory of their encounter. Assumpta wondered, yet again, how a curate learned to kiss like that? Had Peter had girlfriends before he'd taken the Holy Order? Just _how_ experienced was he? An involuntary blush crept across her cheeks.

If he kissed like that, with so much passion and technique, who knows what it'd be like if she'd allowed the encounter to evolve further. Deeper, even…

It can't happen.

Peter had warned her of that very fact. It can't happen. _It can't._ Father Clifford was a good man – a good Priest – he didn't deserve to be the object of desire for some romance-deprived heretic.

Assumpta recalled that this had occurred once before and the result? Peter was run out of town – forced to leave the country, even. She wasn't about to let the same thing happen again. Not when she'd fought so ardently to keep the Englishman here in the first place.

An unanswered telephone snapped her back with a jolt.

"Assumpta, where are you?" Padraig's accusatory blast from the other end of the phone brought her tumbling back to the here and now.

"Excuse me?"

"Ryan's Daughter. First read-through. We're all here waiting for our leading lady."

The publican silently scolded herself forgetting. "Sorry, sorry. I'm sorry" she offered, apologising it would seem for more than her bad memory. "I'm leaving now."

Just as she replaced the receiver into its nook and set about finding her keys and locking the various doors to the pub, another more crucial thought occurred to her.

Peter would be at the rehearsal. Peter would be there.

As she passed a mirror, Assumpta took an extra thirty seconds that she didn't have to pinch colour into her cheekbones and run a comb through her hair.

The Priest would be annoyed with her, there was no doubting that. But the thought of seeing him – just being in his presence – was enough to send Assumpta's heart aflutter, as her head and her mannerisms quickly followed suit.

* * *

The truth of the matter was, Father Clifford was far too deflated to be annoyed with anyone. He had plenty of cause to, that much was certain – and not just at Assumpta.

Everyone arrived late to the play rehearsal. No one had remembered their script. Father MacAnally had arranged their meeting for this evening, in Fitzgerald's pub no less – as if to rub salt into an already very open wound.

And he was hung over. Very hung over.

"Can we have some quiet, please?" he'd begged his cast of amateurs, to no avail. Reluctantly, he held his head between his hands as he rocked, hopelessly from one side of his bespoke Director's chair to the other.

Just as the noise reached an optimum, Assumpta stepped through the village hall door.

Peter did his best to ignore her.

"Places please, ladies and gentleman. We're ready to begin _at last."_

The publican rolled her eyes at the curate's passive aggression and commented as she passed him. "Just because you're on time doesn't mean that you're all there."

"I'm _all there_" he assured snippily.

She couldn't resist a rebuttal. "Your jumper is on inside out."

Peter's hand shot straight to the raised woollen seams of his sweater and felt that sure enough, the underside was what was exposed. Feeling his exhaustion subside and his fury gain ground, he removed the offending item completely and shot the publican a hostile look.

She danced merrily up the steps to the stage, taking pleasure it seemed to him, in the Priest's abject misery.

Oh, _he'd get her._ He would get her.

"Right, we'll go from Act One, Scene Five." Peter looked at Assumpta pointedly. "The love scene."

The publican rolled her eyes at him for a second time and turned to the correct page in the script. Brian, in his infinite wisdom, had suggested Liam for the part of the Major and following no immediate objections (she'd voiced countless since then) Liam was booked, much to the Irishman's delight.

"This is the one where I get to kiss her, Father?"

"The very same."

"Fan-tastic." Liam rubbed his hands with glee as he found his mark beside her on the stage.

Father Clifford pretended to concentrate on his script, deflecting Assumpta's seething glare with ease. "When you're ready," he announced.

Even before Liam had uttered his first line, the Priest yelled 'Cut'.

"What?"

"Your hat Liam?" the Director observed. "You think you could take it off?"

Liam looked reluctant. "Can't do that I'm afraid" he answered before continuing in a loud whisper "Dandruff."

Assumpta looked like she'd smelt something rancid. Peter tried to keep from smiling. "I think we'll take our chances."

With a shrug, the would-be Major removed his baseball cap and gave his head a rub.

"From the top – now remember, there are few words in this scene; it's all action. When you're ready."

Father Clifford leant back in his chair, unsure whether the upcoming love scene would hurt or amuse him. Was he ready to see another man kiss Assumpta – even if that other man was _Liam_?

Before he had the chance to follow this train of through to its inevitable conclusion, the scene was over almost as soon as it had begun, with what was perhaps the least satisfying kiss the stage had ever seen.

"Cut!" Peter announced wearily. "Look, I know this is difficult but you have to communicate more passion here."

The publican fumed silently while Liam looked completely flummoxed. "What do you mean? She wouldn't even open her mouth, Father!"

"Do you mind?" Assumpta crossed her arms and marched to stage left, facing the wings.

A chorus of titters emanated from the rest of the players while Peter held his aching head in his hands. He needed to change tact.

"Assumpta – you're attracted to this man even though you shouldn't be." He paused and gave her a meaningful look. "You know it's wrong but that makes you want it even more."

Peter turned to face Liam before she could manage a response. "Liam – this kiss is the pre-cursor to something – something life-changing. It will in all likelihood end _Rosy's_ marriage and sully her reputation" he paused and considered briefly how far to the truth he'd reached. '"You need to make it count."

There was complete silence in the auditorium in anticipation of this new kiss. Peter watched the performance with a new vigour. His body was practically arched on the foot of the stage in anticipation.

This time, the kiss was much better – relaxed, even. But it lacked the fervency that the Director demanded from his actors. Impatient and with his own stage kiss fresh in his memory, Peter intercepted the performance.

"Look, it's not rocket science," he joked good-naturedly, positioning himself between the two co-stars. "Liam, you need to really grab Assumpta – push her against the wall."

Cautiously, the curate placed his palms on either side of Assumpta's shoulders. "You need to look her in eye, read what she is telling you…" Peter studied his actor in kind, discreetly running the underside of his thumb along the exposed skin of her shoulder.

"Then gently, decidedly, move in to kiss her." He leaned closer almost imperceptibly, his mouth salivating just a little; the heavy lids of his eyes closed all but a centimetre or two.

Assumpta looked at him half with longing, half as if he'd gone mad. Was he really doing this? Here – _now?_

"Does that make sense?"

The Director's command snapped everyone back to reality. As deftly as he'd interrupted the performance, he removed himself from it, signalling for his players to begin again.

But this time, his _Rosy_ was not as accommodating. "You want more passion do you, Father?" Assumpta asked him in a low voice, her tone laced with suggestion. "Play the part yourself!"

With that, the publican threw down her script and exited off the stage. Peter sighed an audible sigh, and announced wearily, "Let's take five, then" to the rest of the group.

Padraig placed a conciliatory hand on the curate's shoulder. "Never mind, Father. We always knew that one was too hot to handle."

Although he didn't respond immediately, a slow smile crept over Peter's face.

"I'm up for the challenge."

* * *

_A/N - Thanks so much for all of your lovely comments. This story is really fun to write so I'm glad that it's going down so well. I hope this latest chapter is received just as well..._


	8. Chapter 8

_One… two… three… _

The breaths were not helping. Assumpta realised this as soon as she even began to exhale. The anger was still so raw – so _new_ – it threatened to consume her completely.

_Four… five…_

Who did he think he was, anyway? Her father? Her employer?

Her _Priest_?

_Six… seven_…

Assumpta tried placing her head between her knees, rocking meditatively between each exhale. She mentally went to her happy place – a spot deep in the forest by the Blessed Virgin – but he was already there. _Peter_ was already there.

He was _everywhere_ these days.

_Eight. _

Hendley's, Cilldargen, the village hall…

_Nine. _

The pub, its kitchen… even the rooms upstairs had at one time or another been tainted by his presence.

_Ten. _

_Her skin. Her mouth. Her heart... _

Damn him.

Assumpta stood suddenly, her chair scraping angrily across the linoleum floor. She looked at the classroom clock. Fitzgerald's lunchtime rush would be in full swing by now and her presence was almost certainly needed by Niamh and Peggy.

_Ah, they'll have to cope,_ she decided, wondering again what had caused her to come here, of all places, to salvage what was left of her composure.

The local school hadn't changed much since the days that she was a student. It had the same wooden desks and the graffiti that adorned them – although the slogans were somewhat _choicer_ these days.

The same pea-green walls and lilac roller blinds. The same smell – all pencil shavings and day-old coffee from the teacher's lounge.

_The same lessons to be learnt. _

It was comforting, in a way, how some things never change no matter how far you get from them. You change, you move on, but still the very core of what's important to you will forever remain the same.

Assumpta wondered briefly if this would apply to her relationship with the Priest. Had too much happened already? Had she ruined things beyond all repair?

She tried to remember her breathing.

A month ago this would never have happened. Peter would never have humiliated her like that in front of everyone she knew – everyone she saw on a daily basis.

But now? He'd changed – _they'd changed._ Their shtick… their dynamic – everything that made them _them_. It was gone – forever, probably – and all that remained was a pool of missed chances and damned frustration.

An angry tear burned down Assumpta's cheek. She should never have agreed to be in that stupid play. She shouldn't have kissed him – the second time, or the third. She should never have told him what he did to her, how she'd been rendered half-mad with longing. She should never have been honest and he shouldn't have been allowed to do the same.

Assumpta stared to the heavens and wished finally something that it was impossible to take back.

They should never have met.

As this thought evaporated into the ether and along with it her list of other regrets, the classroom door creaked open.

Assumpta turned immediately to find that fate did indeed have a sense of humour.

"I thought I'd find you here," Peter commented lightly as he entered. "Well, it was the last place I could think of so I guess that's not really true."

He was nervous, she quickly realised. He was doing his best to hide it of course, his hands stowed safely in his coat pocket to keep from trembling, but everything about him had a kind of frenetic energy that the laid-back curate normally lacked.

"Where is everybody?" he ventured first.

"It's Saturday."

"Right, yes. Of course." Peter made his way over to the teacher's desk where she sat and, keeping his voice as humble as he could, asked her "How are you?"

Assumpta wasn't about to let him feel any better. "How do you think?"

"I apologise," he began in earnest. "For before. For how I acted. Just got caught up, I guess."

"You guess?"

Peter eyes shot straight to his feet. "I'd hate for you to leave the play because of me – because of something I did."

The publican rolled her eyes dismissively. The arrogance of the man! "What did_ I_ do?" she asked him angrily. "What could I have possibly done to make you hate me like that?"

"I don't hate you."

"Evidently –"

"I don't," he implored again, his voice raising a decibel. "Assumpta, I'm the Director. I was giving _direction_…"

"It's Enda, isn't it?"

Just the very mention of the man made Peter's blood turn cold. "Excuse me?"

"My date," she maintained. "You're annoyed that I still went, that I kept it –"

The curate kept his voice quiet. "It's no concern of mine…"

"You're right!" she agreed immediately. "It's my business – _mine_! You have no right... I mean, who do you think you are? My keeper? My lov –" she hesitated momentarily. "My Priest?"

Ignoring her near slip, Peter answered matter-of-factly. "I am your Priest."

"Not mine" she assured him.

"Whether you like it or not, I am."

"Oh really?" she goaded. "Kiss all of your parishioners like that then do we, _Father_?"

Peter felt his nerve falter. "You're being facetious."

"I'm being honest," she began wearily. "I'm being straight with you."

Peter remembered what had happened the last time she was so _straight with him_. First on the kitchen table and then against the door. She'd awoken something in him. She'd opened Pandora's box. And now what? They were just supposed to return to normal?

He looked briefly to the teacher's desk that she was perched on, evaluating quickly whether it would collapse under their combined weight.

_Stop it, Peter._ _Stop it._

"We need to move past this Assumpta. _You_ need to move past this."

Peter expected a retort for this comment, which he realised as soon as it passed his lips, was as unfair as it was inaccurate. But none came. Instead she nodded wearily.

"I know. I know I do." Assumpta gripped the table edge for support. "But you're not making it easy."

Surprised by her candour and then by his own, Peter whispered, "I know."

"What do you want, Peter?"

Her question rendered so many answers, so many suggestions. "I want you to…" he began slowly with the full intention of continuing. "I want you t…" he repeated, grappling desperately for the words that came next.

I want you.

_I want you_.

The words were as honest as they were simple.

"I want you," he said simply again with no hope of saying anything else. "I want you and I-I know that it's beginning to show."

His eyes finally caught hers but to his frustration, she immediately looked away.

"Well," she sighed resignedly, pushing herself off the desk. "Being alone with me in an empty classroom isn't going to help with that."

In a panic, Peter realised that she was making her way for the door. She was about to leave him. Again. Without thinking, he caught her forearm – a gesture that seemed to send tremors through them both.

"Peter" Assumpta's eyes were wide with warning.

The pad of his thumb grazed the underside of her wrist as he drew her closer until she was mere inches from the length of his body.

"Peter…" she cautioned again but it fell upon deaf ears. All he could see was Assumpta. All he could feel was _Assumpta_.

"Assumpta…"

His voice faltered mid-syllable as he pushed the hair back behind her cheek. She was so soft. She was so close…

It seemed almost inevitable that they would kiss again – that _he_ would slip, again. Slowly, Peter's mouth moved to reclaim her, to learn if she was really as warm as he'd remembered. The publican's met his with no second guesses, no restraint – if they were going to hell, they'd go to hell together.

Their bodies edged towards the invitingly level surface of the desk.

It wasn't until she felt Peter's weight on her that Assumpta realised they were on top of it.

Stopping was impossible at that very moment. At that very moment all that existed was the ocean of water between them and the unquenchable extent of their thirst.

They needed this. _He needed this._

Subconsciously, Peter's hand began to tug at the hemline of Assumpta's dress, awarding her legs more freedom as the fabric gathered in a pool around her upper thighs.

The publican gasped at this new game changer and the range of motion it afforded. Her legs now free of the shackles of a narrow, ankle-length skirt, Assumpta ran her ankles along the backs of the Priest's thigh, drawing him closer, eliciting a muffled groan as their shrouded centres finally met.

This was different. This was one very noticeable step further than they'd ever been before but neither of them was about to run from it. Without really knowing what would come next, Peter allowed his weight to come down fully on top of the publican, shifting as he did so to accommodate his now painful, hardening length.

The result was unprecedented.

Assumpta groaned loudly against the curate's mouth as she felt his solid erection push against the moist cotton of her underwear with a whole new fervency.

Fortified by her exhalations, Peter tilted his pelvis again, and again, until the friction threatened to engulf him, until he could stand it no longer.

As if reading his tortured sighs, Assumpta grappled with his belt buckle, attempting to release what had been incarcerated for so long. But just as soon as her hand made contact, Peter pulled away as if he'd been burnt – as if the exquisite ache of touching her was about to become too much.

"No… no, I'm sorry. I - I… can't. I can't."

Precariously, the Priest knelt half against the table and half on it – somewhere in between this bewildering purgatory of his own design.

Assumpta hastened a squeeze of his arm, which he flinched from involuntarily. "It's okay," she pacified. "It's alright."

"I'm sorry," he told her again, only then revealing the tears that were threatening to spill from his eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"Shhh, Peter. It's fine."

"I just – it's just…" Peter allowed his sentence to trail with no intention of finishing it. How could he explain this to a woman? A woman he had every hope of impressing, no less.

"I understand," she told him finally, as if reading his expression.

He shot her a grateful look for her candour, which she then returned in kind. "Probably for the best, anyway." Assumpta admitted eventually. "I hear that you get detention for this kind of thing."

Her joke did its best to break through the tension, but still Peter stared sheepishly at his hands.

He attempted a retort: "Brendan would have a few things to say, that's for sure."

But it fell upon deaf ears. Assumpta's attention was firmly fixed on the beads of perspiration that had gathered at his brow. She wanted to touch them, allow them to absorb into the side of her face as they embraced again but knew that the stars would not align for such an outcome. Today, anyway.

She settled for a handhold.

"This isn't going to be easy, is it?"

Alarmed by the foreboding nature of his question, Assumpta agreed with a simple nod. "I don't think I should be in the play," she added eventually. "I think that we should keep our distance in public – for awhile, at least."

Peter felt himself nod despite everything inside of him leaning to the contrary.

"I should be the one to leave though. You're the lead actor! They play's even named after you."

Assumpta shrugged in nonchalance. "Whatever."

Silence descended as Peter struggled how to phrase what he had to say next. "I do have another request" he stuttered eventually.

"Oh yeah?"

He paused again and looked forlornly. "Enda. Do you think you'll be seeing him again?"

The publican was about to answer, but Peter continued in earnest. "I know it's not my business. I know that it's your choice but seeing you with him – it, it just…"

"Okay" she interrupted quietly.

"Okay?"

Assumpta smiled. "You don't want me to have anyone else even though I can't have you?"

He laughed at his own audacity. "Could you just?"

"There's me thinking that we had enough vows of chastity between us," she observed shyly before repeating, again. "Okay."

Peter's heart danced at her promise but he felt equally bad as it did so. "I'd give anything for things to be different."

Assumpta considered his vow – his vocation – and wondered briefly if this was truly the case.

"It's alright," she absolved him eventually. "Enda was hardly a _love connection _if you know what I mean."

A grin crept over Peter's lips. A perverse part of him wondered how he got to be so lucky. To have his Church, his ordination, still a part of his daily life with Assumpta his – and only his – was more than the curate could ever hope for.

He leaned in half an inch as if to seal their agreement with a kiss but soon thought better of it. Assumpta reclaimed his cheek with her hand and made the gesture for him, quickly and complicity, oblivious to the masochistic nature of their new relationship – of his latest request.

If only Peter had remembered to close the door behind him, this outcome would have perhaps very nearly remained the case.

If only he'd shut the door behind him and remembered that Saturday's are when the school board meet.

_If only he'd remembered..._


	9. Chapter 9

His first instinct was to go in.

When he saw what was unfolding between the Priest – _his Priest_ – and the publican, Father Frank MacAnally's stomach lurched. He felt compelled to stop it. His fist had even found the doorknob.

They were holding hands for goodness sake – _holding hands_ while perched proudly upon Brendan Kearney's desk. Just what had transpired before they'd reached this state, Frank did not know – nor did he want to.

But then it happened.

Assumpta Fitzgerald happened. Only then, when he saw her snatch a kiss from his younger curate, did he realise that this was almost certainly all her doing. Who knows, perhaps it was her plan all along?

He could scold Peter, he could even send him away – but that wouldn't solve anything. There was a very real chance that, given the choice, the poor lovesick boy would throw away the Church for that woman. He couldn't run that risk.

_No_, Frank realised then. Better to pluck this weed out from the root. Better to make Ms. Fitzgerald bear the entire responsibility for the end of the affair.

And he had a good idea what it'd take to convince her.

Father MacAnally closed the door softly so as not to reveal his presence. Give them this morning, he decided. Give them this.

But that would be all.

To have a legitimate reason to spend the majority of the afternoon and early evening in Fitzgerald's was a rare occurrence for Father Clifford.

But here he was. Occupying the best seat in the house, no less, in the inconspicuous corner of the bar where he could steal ardent looks from its landlady.

His excuse was simple; Father MacAnally hadn't actually specified a time for their all-important dressing-down. Better to wait it out in the veritable comfort of the open fire-heated pub within whispering distance of Assumpta.

Every condemned man deserves one final respite, he reasoned. And today, Peter certainly had that.

"For a man who was barred from this place only a day ago, you're sure making up for lost time."

Assumpta leaned in conspiratorially but really there was no need. Fitzgerald's had been devoid of the usual suspects for the most part of the day. Bar a few out of towners, it was just she and Peter.

Just how she liked it.

"Are you enjoying your meal?"

Peter nodded amidst mouthfuls of stewed beef and dumpling. It was perhaps the first home-cooked meal he'd had in weeks. And it was delicious.

"I could get used to this."

"I wish that you would." The words left Assumpta's mouth before she had a chance to catch them.

Peter smiled good-naturedly at her observation. "So do I. "

Assumpta felt her heart leap for what was probably the seventeenth time already that day.

It was wrong – she knew that. Of course she knew. But even the sheer possibility of this thing that they were embarking on, this _flirtation_ that had suddenly become so real. Even the chance that it would lead to something else was intoxicating to her. She had no choice but to follow it.

"Another coffee?" she volunteered happily.

"I couldn't," he returned. "I'll be up all night as it is."

The publican smirked. "Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."

"It is when you've nothing but your thoughts for company." Peter raised his eyebrows. "Believe me."

"Ah, we'll just have to give you something good to think about then."

With that parting comment, Assumpta turned to approach another customer at the bar, giving more measure to her strut than she ever normally would.

Peter took a large mouthful of stew to keep from his jaw dropping any further, but kept his eyes directly on her. Always on her.

He watched as the publican hastened a look at the chiming wall clock.

"Eight on the nose. Your employer's running late" she noted presently.

"He's _not_ my employer."

Assumpta considered what Father Mac would have to say about that. What he'd have to say about a lot of things that had occurred recently. Her lips pursed. "Superior, then."

Peter tightened his smile. "Maybe he's not coming?"

"Like you would be so lucky."

By 10 o clock, Peter concluded that in fact he had been so lucky; he'd seen neither hide nor hair of Father MacAnally all evening. Brendan had popped in briefly an hour earlier, inciting a simultaneous flush of crimson from both Assumpta and the Priest, their earlier misconduct on the teacher's desk still fresh in each of their minds.

But now they were alone. Perilously alone.

For want of anything else to do with his hands, Peter began to load the glass-washer in the kitchen.

"Make yourself at home, why don't you."

"Glass washing is man's work."

His companion deadpanned, "How ever did I manage before you?"

The curate smiled somewhat nervously at her in response. "You're welcome," he hastened in a muted voice.

To Peter's surprise, Assumpta sidled up next to him and began to restack the glasses within her reach. "Didn't your mother teach you anything?" she chastised, only half-serious. "Tankards upside down please."

But he wasn't listening. All Peter was aware of was how close she suddenly was – the clean, faintly floral smell of her hair. As if by instinct, he closed his eyes and inhaled her, taking his fill of her heady trace.

Assumpta shut her eyes immediately. "Peter…" she warned.

"I'm sorry."

She was too close. _Agonizingly_ close. The temptation to close that infinitesimal gap between them was all too real for Peter; he could almost taste her sweet, wine-scented breath mingle with his.

"You should leave…"

Her request brought the curate devastatingly back to the here and now.

He took a single, decisive breath. "I should."

But neither moved.

A moment passed, followed quickly by another. Assumpta was about to speak her companion's name again but her mouth was quickly silenced by his. One kiss quickly turned into two which turned into three… each as sensual and frustratingly fleeting as the last.

"You shouldn't do that," the publican requested.

"What?"

"I'm teetering on the edge, here."

"The edge…?" Peter managed, his voice betraying the tremors that ran through his body.

She blushed in spite of herself. "Kiss me like that again and I'm going to want to do things… with you."

The temptation to kiss her again and find out just what _things_ she meant was palpable.

_Oh, heck._

Peter planted a string of defiant kisses on the corners of his companion's mouth. On her cheeks… her neck. "What… _things_?" he mumbled between them.

"Things?' she remarked dreamily. "You really want to know?"

Distracted by the smell of her hair and the softness of her alabaster skin, he didn't answer right away.

"I do... I want to," Peter stuttered eventually, his remark charged with double meaning. "I want to so much…"

As Assumpta felt the strap of her dress slide down her shoulder, she told him "I want to feel you…"

Pursing his lips, Peter ran a hot palm down the length of her waist, allowing it to linger beneath her hipbone. "You _feel_ me…"

Frustrated by the candour of his response, she told him "I want to feel you _everywhere_."

Goaded by a high-pitched groan in the crook of her neck, Assumpta continued. "I want you to touch me…"

"I am touching you."

Removing his hand from her waist and replacing it on the underside of her dress, the publican breathlessly uttered, "I want you to touch me _there_."

Everything stopped. Peter's hot mouth that seconds earlier had traced patterns along her neck desisted, along with his laboured breaths. All that remained was the precarious position they now found themselves in: Assumpta half-reclined on the cold of the kitchen floor with Peter arched over her, his hand beneath hers on the exposed white of her breast.

_Oh, no. _

_She'd pushed him too far this time. _

Peter was all but willing to give an inch but she'd wanted a mile. She always wanted that mile.

Assumpta fully expected him to make his escape but the curate didn't move an inch. She chanced a glance at his face but his eyes were firmly closed, as if Peter's brain were trying to decide something – attempting to solve some great enigma

She immediately moved to pull away but his voice prevented her. "Please," he entreated. "Don't…. I just need a second."

Now it was Assumpta's turn to freeze. Eventually and deliberately, she released her hold of his hand and instead, hooked it idly around the Formica table leg.

Her companion's eyes widened at the gesture.

She did the same with her other hand, this time gripping the cool metal with her fingers, tethering her to the ground.

Assumpta leaned back onto her elbows, allowing Peter to drink her in, which he did so with all of the want of a thirsting man.

Which, of course he was.

He had to kiss her – he _wanted_ to kiss her – but Peter didn't trust himself. It was a slippery slope he was treading and the curate wasn't sure how far along it he was willing to slide.

Instead he focussed on the position in which she'd left him, breathless and teeming with one hand picketed to the floor and the other... well, _there_.

Peter widened the spread of this hand to better accommodate the full weight of her breast, an action that was met with a surprised gasp from his companion. Had she not been expecting this?

Encouraged by a hardness forming through the thin cotton against his palm, Peter brought his mouth down to her neckline, tracing his lower lip along the ever increasing expanse of cool skin, supplanting fingertips with open-mouthed kisses wherever he could manage.

The illicitness that he felt, the _wrongness_, was palpable. But he wanted this. _He wanted this._

His nerve was beginning to falter. His hands shook. The intricate front-fastening of Assumpta's dress was beginning to bind his fingers so, in one fervent motion, Peter ripped apart the seam, leaving the white material to hang loosely on either side of her like wings.

The sight of Assumpta half-naked beneath him was almost his undoing.

"You're so…" he began in earnest before deciding that his words would only cheapen this.

Instead he sought the veritable refuge of her mouth and neck, kissing her with a new fervency that he didn't know was within him.

By now, the publican had relinquished her passivity and had her palms pressed firmly on Peter's back, balling handfuls of his shirt as he ran his tongue along her stomach

_Oh…_

Ending this was unthinkable, but Assumpta saw their deadline looming.

_This has to stop. It always had to stop. _

As if realising this too, Peter became rougher and more desperate with his caresses.

"Peter…" she warned as his mouth hovered perilously close to her pelvis. "We have to stop."

If he heard her, the Priest wholly ignored her instruction. His hands found the waistband of her tights, which he began to tug slightly.

Speaking his name again, Assumpta announced, "You don't want this…"

A flash of incredulity crossed Peter's face – how could she think that he didn't want this? This was _all_ that he wanted.

"Not like this…" the publican clarified. "Not now."

Peter took a breath that he hadn't realised he'd needed. She was right of course. She was always right.

Breathless and bewildered, Peter desisted his advances. He attempted one of his breathing exercises. _One… two…_ but nothing would calm him this time. With reluctance, he pulled away from her and leaned his back against the Aga.

Trying her best to protect her modesty with the two redundant shreds of the garment that Peter had left her with, Assumpta sat up. She hastened a glance in his direction just as he'd attempted a look at her.

All of a sudden, they were so very shy. How was that even possible, given what they had just done… what they almost did?

Assumpta was the first to speak. "You owe me a dress."

"Sorry about that." The priest smiled shyly. "In the heat of the moment, eh?"

Neither spoke again for a moment, each trying to forget said _heat_, until Peter gathered enough fortitude to stand up.

"I should…" he began, gesturing to the back door.

"You should."

Both shifted uncomfortably to the doorstep. Assumpta studied her companion and his refusal to meet her eye. Was he being coy? Embarrassed?

Another fleeting thought entered her head. _Was he ashamed? _

As if on cue, Peter finally caught her furrowed gaze with his own. "So, I'll see you…"

"I guess."

"Tomorrow."

"If you like…"

"At rehearsal?"

Assumpta smiled at the thought of seeing him again. "I thought you'd left the play?"

"Maybe eventually." Peter returned. "I'll look for my replacement this week."

"Ah, not in any great hurry I suppose."

"I'll keep my distance, you don't have to worry," he added, remembering their previous conversation in the classroom. "You're not that irresistible, you know."

"You just keep reminding yourself of that."

"I'll try to" he replied with a shy smile. Keeping his eyes fully averted from the inches of skin revealing themselves from the tears in her dress, he added, "but something tells me that you're not going to make it easy for me."

His Assumpta interlocked her fingers at the small of her back to keep from reaching out for him. "Since when was this ever going to be easy?"

It was with these parting words, and the prophecy that they promised, that the curate took his leave from Assumpta's doorstep.

_A/N Thanks for all of the lovely reviews. I'm up-to-date with what i've written so far for this story now (yikes!) so you'll have to keep on at me to finish and upload the next chapters. This story is far from finished however... I hope that you'll stick with me! _


	10. Chapter 10

The next day arrived as stubbornly as the previous had left.

Yet again, Assumpta found herself wide-awake at five in the morning and missing – _actually missing_ – Peter. Idly stroking the bare side of her bed, the publican allowed her mind to wander to thoughts and possibilities that she'd so far left unentertained.

_Would she ever wake up next to him in this bed? _

Assumpta reasoned that if such a thing would ever happen, it would only transpire if they had fully committed to this relationship. Which they had. Hadn't they?

Her thoughts raced.

They'd committed to something yesterday, that much was certain. She'd committed to seeing no other man and Peter had committed to… well, allowing her.

_No, it wasn't like that_, she reasoned hastily. They were sorting through this. Whatever _this_ was. Assumpta knew what she wanted it to be but did Peter share this vision? Did he even have one of his own?

The publican rolled over and groaned. _Stop it, Assumpta._

They needed time. They just needed _time_.

But time, she would soon realise, was a luxury that neither she nor Peter could afford.

...

Frank MacAnally exuded an alarming sense of cheer as he stepped foot into Fitzgerald's. As soon as he saw Assumpta, he seemed affable – gleeful, even in his greeting to her.

The publican made a good show of ignoring her visitor, preferring instead to finish fanning the yellowing plastic menus ahead of the lunchtime rush.

However, Father Mac would not be dissuaded from taking his usual place at the bar.

"Whisky and water is it?"

The elder curate said nothing and instead studied her with great interest.

"If you're looking for Father Clifford, you're a good twelve hours too late" she began, unnerved by his regard.

"Father Clifford, is it now?" he retorted. "No need for such formalities on my account."

Assumpta flinched. "What can I do for you then, _Frank_?"

If he was at all offended by her reference, Father Mac didn't show it. "I'd like a word, if I may."

"About?"

The old man eyed her with incredulity. _As if they had any other topics of conversation…_

"I know."

The publican felt a chill down her spine. She was about to brush him off with a barefaced 'What?' – the very same 'What?' she'd given him when he'd caught her in the backseat of her father's Ford Mondeo with Jason O'Shea when she was sixteen.

"What…" she began before the rest of the words escaped her. Assumpta sighed. It wasn't worth it then. It was not worth it now.

"What you think that you know," she said instead, "isn't... isn't what you actually _know_."

Frank smirked at her garbled sentence. After all of these year's he'd finally intimidated the great Assumpta Fitzgerald!

Trying desperately not to acknowledge this, the publican drew a laboured breath.

"He's a good man. " she said finally. "A good Priest."

"Evidently."

"He is!" she maintained, briskly. "The best this town's ever had and you're about to take that away?"

"I believe, Ms. Fitzgerald, that you are already managing that quite well."

Assumpta cursed silently under her breath. This was not going to end well.

_It would never end well. _

"What are you going to do?" she managed after a pause.

With the temerity of a feline, Father MacAnally sidled up to the bar and in a careful and measured voice, recited what he'd come here to say.

"I'm going to tell him what I'm here to tell you, Ms Fitzgerald: end it. End it now or he can forget being a Priest."

Assumpta swallowed, painfully. "That's his decision."

"Really?" the elder Priest wore a look of faux-incredulity on his face. "And you're comfortable with that?"

"It's nothing to do with me."

"I think," Frank levelled. "That if he left, it would be _everything_ to do with you."

It sounded like a compliment but Assumpta knew it was anything but. It was something else entirely.

"That's a lot of pressure on a new relationship, don't you think?"

There it was. Frank's move – his _game plan_. Assumpta's eyes narrowed. What did he want?

"I think, Ms. Fitzgerald that you know as well as I do, that you're the only reason Peter would ever leave his vocation. If he was forced to, that is. He is perfectly happy in all other aspects of his calling but you…" The Parish Priest looked his former Sunday School menace directly in the eye. "You. If he had to, he'd give it all up for _you_. And what would he get in return?"

Everything. Assumpta felt the word press against her lips. _Everything_. She'd give him everything… but even as soon as she was about to say it, about to wipe that self-satisfied smile from the old man's face, the publican knew that it was a lie.

"Marriage… in a Church, of course? Children? Would he still be a practising Catholic? Would they?" Father Mac put to rest his rhetoric. "You may be able to take the man from the Priest, Ms Fitzgerald but it doesn't work the other way around."

Assumpta whispered slowly in an effort to keep her voice level. "If he had to" she began.

Frank smiled. _His real game plan._ "What's that?"

The publican gathered fortitude. "You said that if Peter had to – if he was _made_ to – he'd choose me …"

"Yes?"

"So, if you want to keep him from making that choice – from leaving the Priesthood, why make him?"

Father Mac's face darkened. For a second, he thought the game was up. _Why make him? _Had she really meant that as a question?

"What if…" Assumpta then began in earnest, to the relief of the elder Priest. "What if we didn't give him that decision?"

Her companion made a show of raising his eyebrows by way of a response.

"What if this revelation – this _whole thing_ stayed between us?"

This time, Frank didn't suppress his smile, much to the annoyance of Assumpta. Even the idea of sharing some kind of confidence with the man that embodied everything that she loathed was, at the very least, unsavoury.

It was not lost on Assumpta that she now owed Frank MacAnally a favour – a favour that he was sure someday to collect – with _interest_. And it terrified her.

"If I agreed," he began, "You would have to keep a better guard on this dalliance. If I noticed, it won't be long before someone else does. And if that happens, Ms Fitzgerald, it's game over – no dice."

"Okay," she vowed, demurely.

"No one can even suspect – I want you to assure me of that."

"Okay. _Fine_."

Frank pursed his lips. "How?"

_How?_ For a moment, Assumpta's mind went blank. It was not lost on her that half the village suspected something lingered beneath the surface of her relationship with Peter Clifford. The other half almost certainly knew.

"No one will know," she heard herself promise him.

A moment passed. "And you're willing to take _measures_ to ensure that?" Frank asked quietly.

"Measures?"

"Measures," he echoed. "You'll need to throw them off the scent."

She was about to seek some sort of clarification but then she knew. _She knew_. She knew what she was about to agree to.

"I will."

...

_A/N A little short, I know – and a long time coming! I so wanted to add to this chapter and give you all something meaty to read after all of this time but alas, i'm pouring everything into the next. This one is for you, Andrea... I hope that you feel better soon. And to Bridget – I hope that you're okay :)_


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